Astro Dog, Unit 1, The Courtyard, Low Dalby, Dalby Forest, Pickering, Pickering (2026)

06/09/2026

🚨 AURORA ALERT 🚨 – POTENTIAL FOR AURORA TONIGHT AND OVER THE COMING DAYS! 💚💜💙

Quick Aurora alert as of 00:05 BST, 6th September 2026.

💚 Potential for aurora tonight with currently negative Bz!

💚 Active east limb regions rotating into Earth-facing view!

💚 Potential glancing blow from C8.5 CME expected around 8th September!

💚 Minor G1 geomagnetic storm watch in place for 8th September!

Hi everyone! Just a quick aurora update. It has been a frustrating few weeks for aurora chasers, with plenty of solar activity but most of it directed away from Earth. However things are starting to look a little more promising!

RECENT SOLAR ACTIVITY

The Sun has been very active over the past few days, with multiple eruptions and CMEs from the east limb. While most of these have been directed away from Earth, the source regions are now beginning to rotate into Earth-facing view, which gives us hope for more Earth-directed activity over the coming week or two.

A C8.5 solar flare around AR 4524 on 5th September produced a CME that may be partially Earth-directed, with a potential glancing blow which is predicted to arrive around 8th September. Due to potential of this glancing blow, NOAA have issued a minor G1 geomagnetic storm watch for the 8th of September. We will keep you updated with any developments.

CURRENT STATS

We are currently seeing some elevated solar wind stats due to being within a high speed stream from a coronal hole that began to face Earth a few days ago. The most encouraging sign right now is a sustained negative (southward) Bz, which is the key ingredient needed for aurora to develop. Solar wind conditions are currently at a slightly elevated level and which is currently resulting in some aurora activity visible for those in Scotland and more Northern latitudes.

Solar wind speed is currently at fairly average levels of 355 km/s.

Density is currently at slightly elevated levels of 6.2 p/cm3.

The overall strength of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (Bt) is steadily ramping up and is currently at a fairly elevated 8.5 nT.

The polarity of the IMF has been slightly negative hovering around -1 nT for a prolonged period of time now at but is currently sitting near neutral. Hopefully the Bz can drop further south and stay there allowing aurora to build.

EARTH WEATHER

Cloud cover is a mixed bag across the UK tonight with pockets of clear skies predicted throughout the night. The best opportunities for clear skies look like they will be in North-East Scotland and parts of North-East England. As always, weather forecasts aren't 100% accurate and the only way to be sure is to head out and check your northern horizon!

LUNAR CONDITIONS

Good news on the Moon front! The Moon is currently at around 20% illumination and does not rise until 00:42 BST, so lunar light pollution is relatively low tonight and with a large window of moonless skies. 🌙

ASTRONOMICAL DARKNESS

We are now heading into autumn which means the nights are getting longer and darker skies are returning. True astronomical darkness is now falling earlier and lasting longer which is great news for aurora hunters as we head towards the equinox!

SUMMARY

To sum up, we have a sustained southward Bz right now which is the key ingredient for aurora development, with substorm activity already being detected. The main uncertainty is cloud cover across much of the UK. If you have clear skies to your north tonight, particularly in Scotland or northeast England it is definitely worth keeping an eye on your northern horizon! The coming days also look potentially interesting as those active regions rotate into view. Let's keep our fingers crossed! 🤞💚

FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS FOR UPDATES

As always, we will be keeping an eye on the skies and satellite data and will keep you all updated with any developments throughout the evening.

Please follow our Facebook for up-to-date and accurate aurora alerts. We always make sure to alert you if things are looking promising to give you the best chance possible of seeing and photographing the aurora yourselves. 😊💖

Wishing you good luck and clear skies! ✨

📷 Prints available upon request

06/09/2026

22:00 - We were in the middle of writing a solar report/aurora post... this will follow soon. However we have slightly elevated aurora currently. Those in Scotland might want to check your Northern skies with cameras. 💚💜💙

06/09/2026

A quick photograph that I captured on my phone using a tripod/full manual settings at the gorgeous lake in Dalby Forest following packing away from our stargazing experience. 💖

We had such a wonderful event, with clear skies all night! We got to see so many celestial treats including the Milkyway, star clusters, shooting stars, nebulae, galaxies and the ringed planet Saturn which looked stunning through our range of large aperture telescopes. 🔭

We were packing down until around 4am, but stopped for a nice little moonlit walk around the lake for Luna and couldn't help but stop for a quick photograph too. We captured some on our mirrorless cameras too, but haven't had time to look back at them yet. 🐕

The crescent moon was looking incredible, as was the Pleiades star cluster and the Milkyway. We even got to see the Orion constellation in all if it's glory stretching up above the treeline and on the way home saw Mars and Jupiter too! What a night! 😍🌙✨️

👉 P.S. We don't have many stargazing experiences left at Dalby Forest. So if you'd like to join us please head to our website (link in bio) for more information and booking.

06/09/2026

SHOWCASE SUNDAY – A SHOWCASE OF YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS AND ART! 💚💜💙✨️

We are excited to share with you the latest edition of our weekly showcase of YOUR amazing photographs and art! 💖

Slightly late as we were very tired from our late night stargazing experiences in Dalby Forest. We ended up getting home around 5/6am after packing everything ready for a private stargazing experience next week. 🙈

There's been some amazing photographs sent in, from beautiful photographs of the stars, star clusters, the moon, nebulae, galaxies, lightning, sunrises, sunsets and wildlife. 🌅 🐦🌙 ✨️

Thank you so much for sharing your photographs, we love them all! 😍

YOUR PHOTOS IN OUR NIGHT SKY GUIDE VIDEO

As some of you may have seen, we have started to include a special selection of your amazing photographs from our Showcase Sundays in our monthly Night Sky Guide video on YouTube (). And so, make sure to watch our latest Night Sky Guide video to see if we have included one of your images.

PLEASE KEEP SHARING YOUR PHOTOS

We hope to continue this followers' showcase on a weekly basis along with our follower favourites in our monthly videos. So if you have anything you'd like to share with us, please feel free to share your stories and photographs in the comments of any of our posts.

It doesn't matter whether you're a beginner or a seasoned astrophotographer. And it doesn't matter what equipment you use to capture them, whether it be with a phone camera, a DSLR/mirrorless camera with a tripod or star tracker, a smart telescope or a dedicated astronomy camera with a telescope and equatorial mount, we'd love to see them! We've also loved seeing your art work, so please feel free to share your art with us too! 🥰

We hope you enjoy this weekly showcase of your photographs, we certainly have thoroughly enjoyed seeing them and we look forward to seeing more of your amazing photographs/art each week! 😊

06/09/2026

Wow, we've actually been treated to some clear skies recently! 😍 We will be doing our "Showcase Sunday" slightly late because we've been busy running our special late night stargazing experiences in Dalby Forest! Please feel free to share any photographs you've captured below, we'd love to see them! 🥰

05/09/2026

ON THIS DAY THREE YEARS AGO.ASTRO DOGS CELESTIAL ADVENTURES – AURORA BOREALIS AND IMAGING SATURN FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH OUR NEW TELESCOPE

This photograph of the Aurora Borealis just popped up in our memories. It was captured from Filey on this day last year. We also set up our telescope to image Saturn for the first time too!

It was such a magical night and we were so happy to witness and capture another amazing Aurora display from the stunning Yorkshire coastline and also observe and capture the beautiful ringed planet Saturn through our new telescope too.

We have witnessed some incredible Aurora displays these last few of years and we at Astro Dog are looking forward to another amazing year of Aurora hunting. We can't wait to hopefully see/capture more magical Aurora displays and help many of you see/capture the Aurora for yourselves in 2026/27!

Here is the original post that we published along with this photograph, describing the events of the night when we captured these images:

"On the night of the 26th of August the beautiful planet Saturn reached opposition, which is when a planet is opposite from the Sun from our perspective on Earth. Saturn was also close to perigee, which means that it was at one of its closest points to Earth. Because of these reasons, Saturn was appearing particularly bright, making it a great time to observe the amazing ringed planet.

During this particular night, we also noticed that the stats for the Aurora Borealis had picked up too! We were monitoring the skies throughout the night and thankfully they cleared later in the evening, so we decided that we’d set off on a little celestial adventure.

For this adventure we decided to give our new telescope a whirl. Although Saturn wasn’t in the best place for imaging, we thought we’d give it a go with our new telescope for the very first time. So we gathered all of our telescope and camera gear together, packed it in the car and off we went in search for a location to set up.

In the end we decided to head to Filey Brigg as it has a nice view towards the South/South West for imaging Saturn and also has great views North in case the aurora was visible. Filey Brigg is also one of Lunas (Astro Dog’s) favourite places to explore and play.

When we arrived it was quite windy (which isn’t ideal for a big telescope!) so we drove around a little until we found a spot to try and help shield our telescope from the wind and began the process of setting everything up. Once the basic setup for the telescope was complete Si continued to set up the astro imaging gear on the telescope to capture Saturn and Nicole went with Luna to the monolith/marker stone for the Cleveland and Wolds Way armed with a camera to see if the aurora was visible.

From the moment Nicole set up she was capturing diffuse pink Aurora, whilst admiring the sounds of the ocean, the starry skies and playing with Luna. It was a beautifully clear night and there were many celestial treats to be viewed in the sky including Saturn, Jupiter, the Pleiades star cluster and the amazing constellation of Orion which has only just begun to grace our night/early morning skies again.

After a few hours Si had finished setting up the telescope/imaging gear and began to capture video footage of Saturn. In order to create an image of Saturn he set up our dedicated astronomy camera to capture video footage of the planet. From this video footage we could stack hundreds of the best frames together into a single image, this stacking process helps to bring out more detail. This final image could then be processed with special astrophotography software. It’s quite a hard and technical process and it may not be our best planet image, but we managed to capture a fairly good if somewhat rather blurry image of the ringed planet showing its colour and ring system.

Despite Saturn being very bright and close to Earth (Saturn was approximately 1310.930 million kilometers from Earth at the time), by the time we had the telescope ready, Saturn was fairly low in the sky. This meant there was a lot of atmospheric turbulence making the image very wobbly and it wasn’t the best conditions to image in. However, the final image came out okay considering it being the first time imaging Saturn with new equipment in fairly windy conditions and the planet being low in the sky.

We look forward to trying to improve on our planetary imaging skills and image Saturn again in the near future, hopefully when conditions for imaging are more favourable.

After a few hours the clouds began to roll in from the North, just as the aurora started to become more active, however we did manage to capture some lovely pink in between the clouds. The pink was visible all night. However, the morning twilight soon began to creep in and at this point we started packing the camera and telescope away.

Our new telescope is quite a beast and takes a very long time and a lot of effort to move in and out of the car, let alone set up and take down. All in all we were out for about eight hours and by the time we’d brought all of our gear in from the car it was about 7am. Whilst this telescope set up is lot of effort to use without a dedicated observatory, it will definitely be worth it when we’ve mastered how to utilise it to its full potential. We can’t wait to see what images we are able to capture with it once we’ve got to grips with it and under optimal conditions in the future.

Below you will find our image of the Aurora Borealis peeping through the clouds from Filey Brigg and our image of the ringed planet Saturn at opposition."

05/09/2026

LAST NIGHTS ASTRO DOG STARGAZING EXPERIENCE AT DALBY FOREST, FEATURING STARS, STAR CLUSTERS, GALAXIES, NEBULAE, SATURN AND EVEN SHOOTING STARS! 😍💖🌕🌌🔭🪐🌠 ✨️

We had such a wonderful time with our lovely guests last night for our special late night stargazing experience at Dalby Forest. What an amazing night we had! 🤩

SPECIAL STARGAZING EXPERIENCE 💖

After introducing ourselves, explaining what the night was likely to entail and after checking the forecast and seeing it was likely to clear a little later, we headed inside to look at some amazing astronomy software. Our guests were treated to a vitual tour of the night sky to learn how to navigate the night sky and also learnt some tips and tricks to make the most of any future stargazing adventures.

Once finished we headed outside and were greeted with views of stunning starry skies. The milkyway galaxy was easily visible to the naked eye and looked absolutely incredible! 🤩

Our guests then enjoyed a laser guided tour of the sky, looking at asterisms, constellations, and learning how to navigate the night sky under the stars accompanied by the relaxing sounds of the owls. Following this we all enjoyed a lovely hot chocolate under the stars. 💖

We then delved right in and observed many celestial treats through a range of our large aperture professional telescopes. From double stars, to star clusters, galaxies, nebulae and at this point the gorgeous ringed planet Saturn peeked out above the tree tops so we all got to observe the stunning ringed planet Saturn too! What a delight to witness Saturn and it's rings in all their glory through our largest telescope! We had absolutely incredible views! Plus we even got to see a number of shooting stars too! 😍

Later in the evening we headed inside to get cozy and warm and enjoy a colourful night photography and astrophotography presentation.

After learning about meteorites and getting to hold some real space rock we all wished one of our guests a very happy birthday as they were celebrating their 80th! What a special way to spend their birthday!? 💖

All in all, it was a lovely evening with wonderful company. Luna AKA Astro Dog loved meeting our guests too. 🥰

FUTURE STARGAZING EXPERIENCES

We have many more stargazing experiences at Dalby Forest listed on our website throughout the rest of September.

We also have lots of stargazing experiences listed at Danby Observatory near Whitby throughout October and we will be adding lots more dates to our website at various venues over the next several months very soon! If you'd like to learn more about these please keep an eye on our socials, our website or consider joining our mailing list and then you'll be the first to know about any new events. 😊

We are also available for private stargazing experiences, talks, school and club visits. Please get in touch if you are interested in any of the above.

THANK YOU

Thank you again to the lovely guests who attended last night, you made it so wonderful and we can't wait to share the beautiful dark skies above the Dalby Forest with many more of you over the next month. 😊💖

GIFTCARDS

🎁 We also have gift cards available on our website. Our gift cards can be used to book onto any of our stargazing event dates (we will be releasing many more soon). The perfect gift for stargazing enthusiasts, nature lovers, fans of sci-fi and those with a general fascination with all things space.

Clear Skies! ✨️

03/09/2026

⭐ CLEAR SKIES FORECAST FOR THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY! ⭐

Great news for anyone who has been thinking about coming out for a stargazing event, we are forecast clear skies for this Friday and Saturday night, and we would love you to join us! 🌟

We still have a few spaces available for our Stargazing in Dalby Forest events this Friday and Saturday. And so if you are looking for something to do this Friday, why not join us for a magical night of gazing at the heavens under some of the most breathtaking dark skies in the North York Moors. 🌌

WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT

• 🌲 Perfect Location: Nestled in the heart of the North York Moors National Park, Dalby Forest offers some of the darkest skies in the region surrounded by peaceful woodland.

• ☀️ Ideal Timing: Milder late summer/early autumn temperatures make this time of year a wonderful time to stargaze.

• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Great for Everyone: Perfect for family memories before school starts, a romantic night out for couples, or a unique evening with friends.

• 🔭 Bigger Views: We're bringing an even larger telescope to Dalby this season for breathtaking views of stars, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies, the moon and planets! Plus we might even be treated to views of the Milkyway galaxy and the Northern Lights!

• ☁️ Clouded Out? No Problem! If the weather doesn't cooperate, we’ll take you inside our immersive planetarium dome for a breathtaking virtual journey to the edge of the universe. 🚀

🏆 AWARD-WINNING EXPERIENCE

Our stargazing experiences have been awarded a TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Award, placing our astronomy experiences in the top 10% of activities worldwide!

🚨Please note there are only a handful of spaces remaining for this Friday, so if you'd like to join us, don't leave it too long! If Friday doesn't work for you, we also have plenty of other event dates available taking place throughout this September and October, with more dates at other venues to be added soon.

For more information and to book your tickets, head to our website link in the comments: 👇

💛 A NOTE FROM ASTRO DOG

Dalby Forest is where it all began for us, and we can’t wait to welcome you back to our cozy stargazing hub.

As a small, independent local business, your support means everything. Every interaction, like, tag, share and comment really helps.

If you know someone who’d love a night under the stars, please give this post a share!

Thank you so much for your support!

You're all stars! ⭐

02/09/2026

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR. ASTRO DOGS CELESTIAL ADVENTURES FEATURING A BEAUTIFUL AURORA BOREALIS DISPLAY. IT WAS EVEN VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE AT POINTS! WHAT AN INCREDIBLE DISPLAY! 🙀💚💜💙✨️

This photograph of the Aurora Borealis just popped up in our memories. It was captured from Flamborough on this day last year. It was such a magical night and we were so happy to witness and capture another amazing Aurora display from the stunning Yorkshire coastline. In fact we had four cameras set up capturing timelapse footage and real time video footage which even made it to the national BBC NEWS! It ended up being the second most watched video on the BBC website at the time too! 😍

We have witnessed some incredible Aurora displays these last few of years and we at Astro Dog are looking forward to another amazing year of Aurora hunting. We can't wait to hopefully see/capture more magical Aurora displays and help many of you see/capture the Aurora for yourselves in 2026/27!

Here is the original post that we published along with this photograph, describing the events of the night when we captured this image:

"Wow, what a night! After giving a heads up for the aurora on here, we went out for a little adventure to a nearby field. Initially we were treated with sights of some beautifully pink, but subtle aurora while we played with luna and went for a little walkies. 🐶

Given the aurora was quite subdued, we decided to go for a road trip to Flamborough and when we arrived we were treated to an absolutely stunning Northern Lights display. 😍

The aurora truly burst into life at around midnight. She was dancing all night and well into the morning twilight. The aurora was even easily visible to the naked eye at points! Such an incredible natural phenomenon to witness. There were gorgeous rays dancing side to side, an amazing green arc, beautiful pinks and purples and columns stretching high up into the Plough.

We were sat under a blanket of stars, the aurora dancing to the North and the sounds of the sea all around us. The milkyway was looking breathtaking above the beautiful white cliffs arching across the night sky. We saw several meteors, lots of bunnies, bats were flying overhead and Venus, Jupiter and Saturn were looking amazing too.

What an incredible and unforgettable night. We eventually packed away as the skies became too bright, didn't get home until around 6am and it was a little cold, but well worth it. Definitely the best display we've witnessed so far this season! Hopefully the first of many to come, we will see what tonight brings too! So far it is looking promising for another display! Please follow the main aurora post for up to date aurora alerts. 💚💜💙

We had four cameras plus a phone shooting at one point. We even managed to capture some real time video footage of the Aurora and dozens of shooting stars! 🙀🌠

As you can imagine we captured thousands of photographs with four mirrorless cameras shooting throughout the night, but we've selected one to share for now. We hope you like it. 💖

We might share a little of the video footage we captured in the near future, once we have had a chance to look through it all.

If you managed to capture any photographs yourself, please feel free to share below or tag astro dog. We'd love to see any photographs you captured and as always, if you go out to enjoy the night skies anytime soon, we wish you good luck and clear skies. ✨️"

P.S. Prints available upon request. 📸

02/09/2026

⭐ CLEAR SKIES FORECAST FOR THIS FRIDAY! ⭐

Great news for anyone who has been thinking about coming out for a stargazing event, we are forecast clear skies for this Friday night, and we would love you to join us! 🌟

We still have a few spaces available for our Stargazing in Dalby Forest event on Friday 4th September. And so if you are looking for something to do this Friday, why not join us for a magical night of gazing at the heavens under some of the most breathtaking dark skies in the North York Moors. 🌌

🍂 Autumn is a wonderful time to explore the night sky. The nights are still mild, the skies are getting darker, and there is so much to see up above at this moment in time including the stars, star clusters, galaxies, nebulae and the amazing ringed planet Saturn!

🚨Please note there are only a handful of spaces remaining for this Friday, so if you'd like to join us, don't leave it too long! If Friday doesn't work for you, we also have plenty of other event dates available taking place throughout this September and October, with more dates at other venues to be added soon.

For more information and to book your tickets, head to our website link in the comments: 👇

We hope to see you under the stars! 💖✨

Astro Dog

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